Silent Hill : The Mirror in the Basement
by darkknight uk
Summary: A historian and his family move to Silent Hill from New York to escape their troubled past. But Ryan Streatham is about to realise that he cannot escape the horrors of his past in this unassuming resort town, or the truth that lies in the mirror...
1. Chapter 1

Dan Laurikietis Presents….

SILENT HILL

THE MIRROR IN THE BASEMENT

A Fan Fiction

June 21, 1997 

There was one candle. And the mirror. And the pad. And Mike. There had to be illumination, obviously, but no more than one solitary candle. It helped his mind get started, created deep shadows in corners and brickwork where terrible things could breed and writhe. The shadows were important. That was why there must only ever be one candle.

Mike Donnelly was a horror novelist. Not one of the greats, by his own admission. Dialogue was certainly not his strong point and his protagonists were often bland and two dimensional. He remembered the words of one critic in particular;

"Donnely's characters expound trite exposition through dialogue that comes right out of a bad forties serial. His heroes are tiresome and his heroines invariable serve as cheap titillation as if to placate us with a steady stream of sex and violence until we forget how tedious the writing is."

Mike didn't mind such negative criticism. He even welcomed them to a certain extent. Where his true strength lay, what got people turning pages and paying his mortgage, was his twisted imagination and understanding of the darker side of human psychology. Like all the greats from Barker to Wheatley he embraced the guilty perversions of the human mind, twisted them and shrouded them in nightmare to create images and creatures that repulsed, certainly, but also resonated deep within the psyche. When he was on form he could hit a raw nerve and tap into the shared human consciousness, playing on the universal fears and needs that all people have. That was why he had moved to Silent Hill. He found its history fascinating. The charming, even quaint, colonial streets belying the appealing resort town's violent and bizarre history. Like the sweet little girl hiding a bloodied butcher's knife behind her back.

It was perfect.

The house way okay. Basic. It provided everything he needed. The basement was the real selling point for him. Its mouldy exposed brickwork, the blackened damp timbers, the relentless cobwebs. The mirror was an unexpected bonus. Unaccountably attached to the rear wall he had been unable to remove it so set to work restoring it as best he could. Despite some sizeable patches of corrosion and rust he had got it looking pretty good. He now had an inner sanctum, an office, a home within a home where he could be alone with his thoughts. He had written his best stuff here. The drugs helped of course, but not nearly as much as the almost tangible atmosphere in the basement.

It was there that he sat, alone except for his reflection in the mirror. Right about now the peyote he had eaten was starting to kick in. As the candle light danced its flickering fangango he drew himself close to the mirror, pad clenched in his hand and stared deep into his own eyes. Shadows rippled and pulses in the brick, mortar and timbers. There was a faint buzzing in his ears. This was a different high to the others but he was sure it would give him something to work with.

"Talk to me." He looked around and appealed to the basement, "Talk to me."

The buzzing became louder. The pulsing shadows became more brazen, spreading around the room like the oil in a lava lamp. He picked up his pen and began to write, his gaze transfixed on his reflection in the mirror. His hand worked independently of his mind, cataloguing a stream of consciousness;

I'mlookingforalittlegirlInmyrestlessdreamsIknewyouwouldcomeItwasforetoldbyGyromancyTHEDEMONAWAKENS,SPREADINGHISWINGS.Youpromisedyou'dtakemethereagainsomedaybutyouneverdid.GoodbyeDaddyaandthankyouAren'tyouMaria?ItisthemarkofSamael. Don'tletitbe completed.YesIstabbedhimintheneckwithaspoonitwasthedevil. the DEVIL MADE ME DO IT.LeaveusboththeHellaloneThebloodandpusjustkeepoozingthroughwhatiskeepingthischildalive?

The room began to sway. In the periphery of his vision the air seemed to become thick and grainy like bad reception on a TV. He wrote for a full ten minutes, never taking his eyes from the mirror, throwing sheets of paper to the ground when his writing filled the page.

He stopped. His hands were shaking now. He was having a bad one.

He gathered up the papers, ready to cast an eye over what he had written. Glancing up he noticed with mild alarm that his reflection in the mirror hadn't moved at all. It stared at him, motionless, the pad limply held in his hand. Trying to concentrate through the narcotic induced haze his eyes darted around the room. Everything seemed normal. The pulsing in the shadows was beginning to recede, the buzzing was gone.

His eyes returned to the mirror.

His reflection sat stupefied, unmoving. All around it the mirror image of the basement became ghosted and snowy, the shadows melted and swayed. As Mike sat petrified he saw the mirror image of his basement melt completely into a psychedelic rave of reds, browns and oranges. A crimson fluid began to leak down the face of his mirror image, just below the hairline. Terrified, Mike put his hand to his head. It came away dry.

_It's just a bad trip, ride it out. It can't hurt you!_

The buzzing returned. Louder and more intense, like a swarm of giant angry bees forcing themselves into his ears, his eyes, his very mind. A low, lilting sound like a moan resonated around the basement though Mike was certain it came from his body. He watched in horror as his mirror image began to transform before his very eyes. Its skin became blackened and flaking like rotted wood. Crimson fluid turned to black and pulsed around his body like a living thing, eating away at his flesh. Panic stricken mike struggled to his feet and bolted for the small flight of stairs that led out of the basement.

His sweaty, shaking hands fumbled at the door handle. To his horror, he felt it rattle hollowly in the door, rattling as though it had never been attached to a lock. In desperation he threw his weight against the door. It held fast.

Beneath his feet he felt the basement vibrate, dust and plaster rained from the ceiling. A tiny localised earthquake. Mike lost his footing on the steps and found himself tumbling back down to face his deformed doppelganger in the mirror.

It seemed to grin at him.

That was when he heard the siren.


	2. Chapter 2

**November 10, 1997**

"_Sometimes the mother has trouble bonding with the child. It is a typical symptom of Post Natal Depression."_

_The doctor leaned forward, hand on his shoulder. Expensive cologne and tobacco. Why did doctors always smoke?_

"_It's particularly common when the infant displays withdrawn or autistic tendencies like your son."_

"Huh?"

Bump in the road. He must have nodded off.

"I didn't say anything."

Mairead looked tired. He knew to say as little to his wife as possible when she was tired. She tended to get irritable. She _had_ been driving for eight hours. Kim was now awake in the back, fidgeting uncomfortably, stretching her legs to avoid cramping. Tim leaned his forehead against the window, making his characteristic buzzing sound. Ryan stretched and it felt good. Outside the sun had decided to welcome to their new home in person and he was grateful for its presence despite the sticky heat in the car.

"Maybe I should drive for a while."

Mairead shook her head.

"No. I don't like your driving, you get lost too easily. Besides we're nearly there."

As if on cue the sign rose out of the distance. It was the refined shade of green of private school blazers. Pristine white lettering smiled at them;

Welcome to

SILENT HILL

The morning sun cast a golden glow on Mairead's pale complexion, painting reddish streaks in her rich brown hair. She was beautiful and that pretty much made everything else worth it. Ryan reached his hand over to rest on hers at the wheel and she responded with a smile that left him with no choice but to forgive her temper.

"Mom?" Kim piped up from the back. "Can we get Chinese when we're unpacked?"

"We'll see Kimberley."

"You're supposed to have pizza when you move into a house." Ventured Ryan, "It's like, a rule."

Mairead rolled her eyes,

"You kids."

She was five years older than he and while Ryan possessed a certain kind of maturity (he was a historian and father of two after all) he relished infuriating his spouse with his infantile behaviour. Tim's head jolted away from the window. A huge smile spread across his face and he pointed out of the window.

"Doggie!"

There was, of course, nothing there. Following the passing of the imaginary animal with his eyes he resumed his buzzing and brought his head to rest on his teenage sister's shoulder. A silvery strand of drool leaked onto her t-shirt.

"Timmy, for Christ's sake!"

"Kimberley." Snapped Mairead, "Don't you blaspheme!"

Ryan fought to suppress a chuckle. Did she have to be so _relentlessly_ Catholic? He remembered the times when he had found her innocence and her joyous piety very attractive. The day they had strolled in the woods and she had forced him to question his almost militant atheism.

"Look around you Ryan." She had beamed, her cheeks apple red, her smile ivory. "You can't seriously suggest that anything this beautiful could happen by accident?"

She had danced amongst the trees and lay down amongst the leaves and kissed him and that was the day he made up his mind to propose to her. That seemed like a lifetime ago. He had been in the final year of his PhD. His stomach still gurgled with nervousness when he recalled asking her father for permission to marry her. He was naturally apprehensive around his girlfriend's parents despite the quintessentially Irish hospitality they had extended to him.

Her parents. It wasn't fair that they'd gone the way they had.

"Is this it? I think this is it."

"Yep. This is it!"

They pulled into the ample driveway. Ryan was unable to resist the childish urge to leap out of the car. The biting November cold belied the brilliance of the sun. He raced around the bonnet and opened the door for his exhausted wife. Hand in hand they regarded the building. They had seen it before of course but now it was theirs and that knowledge seemed to make it that little bit more special.

It stood resolute, sun glancing off its white painted timber, inviting them to climb the wooden steps up to the sky blue front door. There was even a tin mailbox atop a wooden post at the end of the modest but lush front lawn.

For Ryan, a sucker for colonial architecture, it had been love at first sight. He put an arm around Mairead. Small town life in a home with character. It beat the crap out of living in a cramped apartment in Manhattan though he was glad to have gotten urban life out of his system. Kim had helped her brother out of the car and come to join them.

"So what do you think Kimberley?" asked her mother.

A wistful smile turned her lips and for a moment Ryan thought she looked so much like Mairead it was scary.

"'s'alright." It was the solemn duty of the teenager to be blasé about absolutely everything.

"Tim?" Ryan regarded his son with worry. He seemed afraid to step away from the car. His eyes peered as if through fog and his hands were extended as if he were unable to see in front of him. He took a tentative step forward.

"Timothy?" Mairead hadn't the patience after the long drive to be delicate with the boy. She took him gently but firmly by the wrist, walking him towards the stairs to their new home.

"Come on Timothy you don't want to miss the first step into out new home do you?"

The seven year old offered little resistance, treading clumsily in his mother's wake.

"Be gentle with him honey." The advice was trite and would only annoy his wife but Ryan felt compelled to utter it anyway.

She didn't respond and he decided to let it lie. With the appropriate air of ceremony he opened the envelope containing the keys and slid the front door key into the lock. The sky blue door swung open inviting the family to explore its interior, fertile with promise and potential. Kim ran in first of all, eager to investigate the room that had been assigned to her. Mairead came next; her thoughts occupied by fabric swatches, paint samples and Swedish furniture catalogues. Ryan skipped down the steps to collect Tim who stood peering straight ahead, a look of supreme confusion on his face.

"Come on buddy," Ryan cooed taking his son's hand. "Don't you want to see your new home?"

For the briefest of moments he thought he saw the faintest glimmer of recognition in the child's eyes and arm in arm they ascended the stairs together.

"Gargh!"

Tim stood stock-still, unable to tear his gaze away from the top stair. Despite his father's gentle encouragement Tim was unable to move and began to shiver violently.

"What's wrong son?"

His eyes rooted to the same spot Tim's knees buckled and his thumb found its way into his mouth. Ryan was aware of warmth and dampness as urine darkened his son's trousers and pooled around his feet.

Ryan was completely dumbfounded. He could not account for his autistic son's behaviour. The man was completely oblivious to the figure that crouched at the top of the stairs. He was unable to see the decayed greying flesh stretched taut across bulging muscular shoulders and withered useless legs, the head, an amorphous lump bound in bandage like skin that convulses from side to side with inhuman speed.

No, Ryan Streatham was oblivious to the creature as it hopped on its flat, clawed hands down the stairs, dragging the bony sacks of its legs behind it. He was just as oblivious to the strangulated barking it made and the oozing blackish liquid that dripped from the gaping chasm in its chest.

But Tim saw.

And heard.

And knew.


	3. Chapter 3

November 11, 1997 

_Sprinting now, stumbling, falling. Only half awake. Lactic acid burns at the muscles in his legs as he launches himself into the door._

_The parking lot is cold, damp and unwelcoming. Old moisture hangs dank and oppressive in the air. Harsh fluorescent lighting burns his drowsy retinas. The acrid tang of the fumes seeps into his nostrils and his guts turn to water when he realises it may already be too late._

"_Mairead, in God's name what are you doing?"_

_She sits pale and ghostly in the fog of spent gasoline. Sill beautiful. Even now. As his hands claw at the door handle she turns to him, three words unheard over the din of the noisy engine._

"_I love you."_

_He wrenches the door open, instantly blinded by the deadly haze. Eyes and throat burning he drags her limp, catatonic body to rest on the cold damp concrete. He cradles her, strokes her hair and tells her that everything will be okay. She can only stare as infinite remorse pours from her tear ducts. _

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

_His head twitches as he hears it. The sound of strangulated desperation. Weak but determined. Cold, hard certainty forms a lump in his stomach and he bolts to his feet leaving her to slump, face down onto the ground. _

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

_He fumbles at the back seat, catching the eye of the figure lying in the back seat. It thumps feebly still on the window. Mouth agape, eyes glazed. Knowing without understanding he struggles ineffectually against death's embrace._

"Tim!"

The word rattles in his throat, yanking him through the veil into consciousness. Covered in a sheen of perspiration Ryan blinks and looks around, the sense of disorientation passing as memory resumed its usual business.

Next to him she lay, undisturbed, beautiful and angelic.

He loved her. And that was all that they had needed. Love had helped them put the terror of the past where it belonged and allowed them the relative joy of the present. The move had been the key, and away from the environment that was a constant reminded of the old horrors they had had the best night as a family he could remember.

There had been pizza, in accordance with tradition. They had hauled and shifted and planned and arranged and rearranged before gathering on the sofa to enjoy the aromatic mozzarella dripping feast and each other's company.

As Mairead, with her arm around her son, eased pieces of pepperoni and mushroom into Tim's mouth, cooing reassuringly he felt with a warm sense of pride and optimism that the past was now well and truly behind them.

Easing himself gently away from his sleeping wife Ryan trudged, stiff legged to the bathroom. He sat lazily while he urinated and mapped the approaching weekend in his head. The four of them had pored over a map of the town. Mairead had suggested that they inspect the Balkan church, Kim had insisted that they visit the Lakeside Amusement Park as soon as possible. Ryan had said nothing but silently noted the location of the library and drooled (figuratively) at the prospect of examining the hidden treasures of the historical society. The academic in him was already formulating ideas for a new book. He and his publisher had noticed with some surprise that very few books on the town's colourful history existed and he relished the prospect of delving into the bloody secrets of the town's past, including some of the more recent phenomena that has strangely eluded the attention of the mainstream media. His thoughts collated and whirled, threatening to form a maelstrom of cerebral activity and excitement that would keep him up all night. He heard the gentle chiding of Mairead's voice inside his head. Now was not the time for such thoughts. His wife and family were of paramount importance right now. He should return to bed and enjoy the warm bliss of their bodies entwined in shared slumber. When they had used the following days to heal and grow together as a family, _then_ he would invest his energies in professional enterprises.

He flushed, dutifully lowered the toilet seat and washed his hands. Leaving the bathroom he felt strangely and unduly cold, the hairs all over his body standing on end as he crossed the landing to the master bedroom. There must be a draught somewhere. He would inspect it in the morning. Climbing back into marital bed he pulled Mairead close to him, savouring her warmth and her perfume. Lazily she turned, her face coming to rest right in front of his so their noses were touching. The moonlight shone bold and silver through the curtains, casting its pale glow on her already pallid features. The unwelcome image of her ashen face in the halo of exhaust fumes crept back into Ryan's mind's eye and he forced it out, refusing to let it compromise this moment of intimacy.

"Y'alright?"

She hadn't lost that beautiful Irish lilt inherited from her parents.

"Needed a whiz."

"'Time's it?"

"Two thirty, maybe three."

She smiled, rolled onto her back and stretched, the movement shrugging the covers from her bare torso. Ryan laid a hand on her stomach, tracing the ripples of her abdomen with his fingertips, tracing a line up her sternum, cupping her breast. Her body was so firm and pale, like white marble. Feeling the stirrings of desire he brought his mouth down upon hers, his tongue exploring her mouth as his fingers teased her erect nipple. She returned the kiss with surprising vigour, her fingers reached around behind him to probe at the hair on the back of his neck.

Almost fifteen years of marriage and he had never desired her more.

His hand left the breast and crept stealthily back down her torso, over the ridges of her pelvis and over the soft mound of hair below.

"Ry_an_!"

She reprimanded playfully. His hands began to probe at her and a soft moan escaped her lips.

"Ryan, what about the kids?"

He grinned.

"Don't worry they'll be sound asleep."

They weren't.

Unbeknownst to their parents the children lay on the sofa, staring vacantly at the television, each plagued by a completely different brand of insomnia. Kim sat in the wan blue light of the flickering screen, pulling a woollen comforter even tighter around her shoulders and wondering while she shivered how she could still be so damn cold. On her lap lay Tim, hands clasped in front of his mouth as if in prayer, forming bubbles of spittle as he breathed.

On the screen a young woman, perplexed and bewildered through a stone maze. Weaving in and out of consciousness Kim registered puppets, faces made out of hands and… was that David Bowie? She had seen the movie before, now a little older and better educated she began to see the allegory, an adolescent girl alone and confused in a constantly changing world, hounded by a man by whom she was simultaneously attracted and repulsed. Sure, it was about growing up, and from what she'd seen from her friend's mothers things were only going to get worse. Oh God… what if she got sick like her own Mom?

The movie disintegrated into a blur of light and sound as the teenage girl's tired eyes and brain finally succumbed to the embrace of sleep.

While she dreamt of stone walls and a stranger's hot breath on her cheek, Tim's eyes stared unblinkingly at the television.

At first he had seen the vibrant colours and action of the film but as his sister slept it seemed to recede into static. Tim stared mesmerised by the blur of black white and grey that looked like an ocean of grey maggots writhing at speed. Shapes danced in and out of existence. Grey seeped into orange which rusted into brown which seeped into red. Bars and cages and chains formed and disintegrated.

The boy stood and approached the machine, his face a beautiful mask of spittle covered serenity. A thousand words in hushed voices filled his ears, his mouth and throat.

"mommy the pit the pit smoke can't breathe aglaophotis die the lake a red devil made me do it they look like monsters to you?"

The images on the television gained substance and colour. By the time they hardened the boy understood their meaning.

Nodding in comprehension or acquiescence he left the room, his pace an ordered march in contrast to his usual shuffling steps. He made his way through the kitchen turning the light on as he entered, it was very cold but that didn't matter any more. He approached the thick, heavy door at the back of the room.

The door to the basement.

It was locked but it opened just fine. It was dark down there but he could see just fine. His feet negotiated the treacherous steps with practiced ease though they had never descended them before. When he saw the long rectangular object it seemed to sigh with joy and relief at his presence. It had so much to show him, so much to share with him. He sat patiently on the floor before it, an eager student ready for his first lesson.

At first he saw only himself, or rather the vague form of his pale skin in the sparse light from above. Slowly, slowly light crept into the uppermost corner of the mirror, spreading like a blot on tissue paper and within a minute Tim was sitting before a rectangle of pure greyish light. Just as slowly tendrils of mist crept like ghostly fingers. They tickled his face and hands and made him giggle. As the mist filtered persistently into the small basement the image in the mirror grew darker.

Beyond the veil of mist Tim perceived a chair. It was like a school chair, the chrome of the legs erupting in lesions of rust, the green padding tarnished black with sickly brown stuffing protruding from a tear in the corner. Around the chair a room formed that was identical to the one he occupied in space and dimension. Its features however were completely different. The walls were composed of bars made of tarnished but sturdy iron, the ceiling was a densely woven lattice of wire mesh and in places hung chains that ended in barbs that promised pain and suffering. The metal that comprised the room was riddled with pock marks of rust and beyond the iron cage was the most exquisite darkness. In each corner a figure was chained to the struts supporting the ceiling like a medieval witch at the stake. Though their heads twitched with unnerving speed they all bore faces that Tim recognised.

The boy reached out a hand and knew that there was no glass to separate him from this strange new world. Without fear or trepidation he stepped through the door that had once been a mirror and it faded out of existence as soon as he was through. The metallic lattice of the floor bit into his bare feet and he winced at the discomfort, growling at the surface that had caused him this irritation.

He froze when he heard his growl echoed behind him. The footfalls of something heavy and powerful padded across the iron floor. Tim turned and saw it. It skulked toward him from the corner. It walked on all fours, its skin crimson and blackened, coated with oozing scabs. Bristles of wiry fur ran along its length. Along it's muscular torso and legs were loosely tied bandages, yellowed with age and pus. Its elongated muzzle twitched and quivered appraising its new visitor. The snout bisected, dripping clear mucus to reveal a long, fleshy red tongue that weaved serpentine in the air before returning into the cavernous mouth. The creature tensed and threw its head back, emitting a howl that sounded like a woman screaming.

Tim squealed in delight, clapping his hands. He bounded toward the creature and knelt before it, bringing out a hand to rest on the mutilated snout. It twitched for a moment and then, seemingly satisfied the creature drew nearer. Gurgling happily he petted the beast, stroking the wiry fur, tickling its blistered flesh.

"Doggie!"


	4. Chapter 4

**November 12, 1997.**

_He sits there spent, drained, exhausted and glowing with a lover's post coital sheen. The gauze like texture of the carpet dimples the pale bare flesh of his thighs and buttocks. As he regards his exhausted, flaccid member and the few silvery strands drooling from its tip he feels suddenly overcome by a sickly numbing haze._

"_I'm goin' now Ryan. I love you."_

_She rises, pale and naked and beautiful, her marble curves refusing to yield to middle age she moves slowly yet lithely. Her hair forms a shimmering trail behind her as though she were walking through water. He tries to rise but his movements are sluggish. His instincts scream at him through a dopamine fog. _

"_Wheeereyeegoan?", he slurs._

_Shakily he finds his feet and the world cartwheels beyond the span of his comprehension. He crashes to the ground and somewhere beneath the mist that shrouded his perception he chides himself for getting this drunk. He stumbles clumsily through blackness as the bedroom around him melts into nothingness._

_A moment passes._

_He sits on the floor now, reading the book about Medieval England his uncle had given him for his twelfth birthday. A chilly draft creeps through the floorboards on which he sits and he remembers that he really should find out where that draught was coming from when he grows up and gets a place of his own. All about him toys lie scattered. He picks up the GI Joe that lay face down next to him._

_Stupid, stupid toy!_

_He smashes its stupid head repeatedly into the bare floorboards of his bedroom in the house he grew up in. The house that was demolished twelve years ago. GI Joe's head breaks clean off._

_Sadness. And loss._

Ryan's eyes snapped open and his left leg shot out, connecting sharply with the stool opposite causing it to topple over and clatter noisily onto the hardwood floor. The hand that had cupped his chin and supported his head scythed across the table causing several pages of his notes to sail through the air. The inevitable moment of panic one experiences when waking up in unfamiliar surroundings quickly subsided. Consciousness trickled back into his brain like the translucent brown drips of coffee falling through the filter into the first pot of the day.

He had awoken early that morning after a fitful night's sleep. The academic in him was ravenous and could not be placated by the domestic bliss he had experienced in that first night as a family in that house on Munson street. It scratched at the bars of its cage, howling at him to make a start on his book.

It had long been a tradition of his before rolling up his sleeves and digging into his research to find a good coffee house, start a tab and brainstorm for a few hours amidst the aroma of freshly percolated coffee and background jazz.

At 6:45am he resolved to honour that tradition, settling on Café Mist on Katz St if only because it looked like the only place that was open this early outside of the peak season. As he pulled the car up outside the elegant and unassuming front he planned his onward journey, prepared and fully caffeinated he would later round the corner onto Nathan Avenue and divert his undivided attention to the untold treasures of the Silent Hill Historical Society.

It was a glorious November morning, the sky clear and pale as he drove and the cold in the air that bit his cheeks as he left the car and pushed open the glass door made the warmth and aromas of the café all the more welcoming when he entered. The walls were tastefully papered in a warm cream colour and a few inoffensive contemporary prints adorned the walls here and there. From a door at the far end which presumably led to the kitchen the unmistakable tune of "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash drifted toward his ears. Not his first choice in background music but the place had a charming ambience nonetheless. He had chosen the table at which he had just now jerked awake, pulled out his leather holdall containing all his notes and then…

Now as he walked around the table to retrieve the fallen stool his brain struggled to fill in the gap between sitting at the table and waking up confused and bewildered. He had absolutely no recollection of falling asleep at his table or even feeling tired. Surely he wasn't getting _that_ old.

A palpable sense of danger crawled, slow and serpentine down his spine as he hand came away from his fallen chair smeared with crimson grime.

It occurred to him as he glanced around the room that something inexplicable and elusive had caused a change in his surroundings during this curious gap in his memory.

Outside the window the clear crisp day that he remembered upon his entry into the café was now completely enveloped in a dense fog. Even his car which was parked less than six feet away was reduced to an anonymous charcoal grey smudge. The walls within the cafe had lost their welcoming lustre, becoming pale and blotchy with mildew in the corners and below the coving where the wall met the ceiling. Steadily his senses relayed to him increasingly distressing information leading to the conclusion that something was amiss.

Eyes, ears and nose became traitorous harbingers of dread and fear.

The smell of coffee and freshly bakes pastries that had welcomed him upon his entry into the shop had been replaced with a rank, stale odour of rotting food punctuated by the pungent overtones of burning meat. The music that had assailed his ears was now replaces by the menacing hiss of static from the unseen radio in the kitchen.

And it was cold.

Really cold.

As Ryan's breath unfurled in visible clouds before him he whispered comforting denials to himself through chattering teeth while wondering why he hadn't noticed all these enormous changes immediately upon waking.

And then it occurred to him. This change was still happening.

The blackish green mildew on the walls was slowly but steady spreading, bleeding down the length of the wall causing lumps of festering plaster and wallpaper to slap wetly onto the ground. Registering as something brushed lightly against

his shin Ryan looked down to see half a dozen clipped together pages of notes skitter across the floor, curl up, blacken and crumble to dust as if incinerated by some invisible blaze.

It was at this moment that the academic became acutely aware of the high pitched keening sound being emitted from the unseen radio. Immediately after the sound registered the harsh, nauseating odour of burning, spoiled meat scratched its way into his nasal passages, clawing at his sinuses and causing him to gag. As his hand clamped itself over his mouth he found his feet treading clumsily, unbidden toward the ajar door to the kitchen from which tendrils of steely grey smoke now began to creep.

As he advanced toward the door he felt a strange sense of detachment, the human instinct for denial clamouring over the panicked voices in his head to reassure him;

_This is just another dream. Walls don't rot instantaneously, rooms don't transform before your eyes. _

He swallowed hard, the saliva burning slightly as it scored a sleek, wet track down his smoke parched throat. He was now but a few steps from the door.

_Keep walking, let it pan out. Open the door and you'll wake up scared and sweaty but-_

Above the intermittent squawk of the radio a long, low but unmistakably female moan resounded through the door, causing Ryan to freeze in his tracks.

Moments passed. Ryan began to feel an indistinct sense of menace exuding beyond the door he faced, as cloying as the smoke that continued to snake around the door growing thicker and darker scratching and tickling at his nose and throat.

He took a tentative step forward, an unsteady hand raised up to push the door open.

_Got to see it through. Nothing to fear. Either I'm dreaming or there's a rational explanation, either way it's-_

His train of thought was cut short as the moaning returned, followed immediately by a muffled, rhythmic clanging. He stood for a moment, his fingertips lightly pressed against the door as his mind tried to place the sound within a context.

It did. And the images that it conjured up were less than pleasant.

Images of metal on meat and bone.

_Oh God, Oh Jesus Fucking Christ, this isn't a dream, this is real and there's a woman in there, a cook or a waitress and she's hurt. Maybe seriously hurt. I have to-_

His sense of chivalry would not allow his mind to ponder a moment longer. He slammed his palm against the heavy door which swung back abruptly allowing him entrance to the kitchen.

The smoke was thicker than he had expected and its intensity underscored by the putrescent meaty scent made his stomach lurch. He waved an arm to clear his view.

The kitchen was small, cramped and in a terrible state of disrepair. The presumably once white tiles were a smoking room yellow brown, smeared with brownish crimson in places. The surfaces, sink and utensils were caked in flaking brown rust as was the stove from which the smoke now billowed.

But however distressing the state of the kitchen, it was no preparation for the sight of the figure that stood astride the stove.

At first he had imagined it to be once creature, now he realised it was in fact two. The pulpy, tumescent mass sprawled atop the stove looked vaguely human, possessing a semblance of arms and legs, bloated and flabby beyond the extent of human obesity though they were. Its skin was pale and waxy, greyish in hue and scored by greenish black veins across its length. From underneath its blubberous mass the smoke continued to rise, fat and blood spitting out from beneath the folds of its doughy torso.

Astride it sat an even more disturbing creature, though its appearance was unsettling for very different reasons.

At first glance it looked like a woman, its form shapely and svelte and clad in a stained and faded waitresses uniform which must have once been pink. The body beneath the uniform though shapely was the same waxy grey colour as the bloated creature beneath and marbled with the same blackish veins. It was completely bald and its scalp was scabrous with peeling blackish lumps of dried blood. He could discern no face from its profile but he felt it safe to assume that its eyes (if eyes it had) were not upon him.

More unsettling than the creature's appearance, however, was the act in which it was engaged. It sat astride the flabby creature's unseen head, rocking it's pelvis spastically back and forth, thrusting its crotch into its face with inhuman force and causing the oven to rock creating the clanging noise that had drawn it into the room.

Ryan could only look on speechless as the heavy door swung back around and thumped him in the side. He stood half in, half out of the kitchen as the demon waitress' thrashing became faster and more frenzied. As if in sympathy the whine of the radio escalated to a harsh shriek, joining this perverse spectacle in terrible climax.

The smoke had by now become unbearable and Ryan coughed convulsively, hot tears falling from his stinging eyes. The demon waitress turned sharply to face him and its face, or lack thereof caused Ryan's testicles to attempt to leap into his stomach which in turn attempted to leap into his throat.

In the absence of a mouth and nose there was only a puckered, fleshy hole in which blackened teeth jutted here and there like ancient mooring posts on a blackened and slimy road. Within this wet tunnel of brownish flesh writhed a long black tongue that fluttered obscenely at him, seeming to taste his presence.

Its head began to twitch with inhuman speed and severity and again it emitted that low moan, starkly unsettling in its ambiguity for it straddled the line between a sound or rage, pain and the orgasmic sighs which he had heard drift from Mairead's lips less than twelve hours ago.

The demon waitress stood and in doing so revealed, protruding from its short skirt, spiny, snapping labia like the hungry jaws of a Venus fly trap. Mercifully they quickly retracted into the confines of the brown and crimson stained garment dropping chunks of grey flesh onto the stove as they did so. Ryan looked down at the blob like creature still sizzling and smoking on the stove and saw that its face had been reduced to a ragged, loosely assembled mass of flesh by the macabre pseudo sexual act. His disgusted reverie was interrupted, however as the demon waitress hopped down drunkenly from the stove and lurched toward him.

Panic stricken Ryan tumbled back into the dining area, almost colliding with an arrangement of chairs.

He had just reached the door he had entered the café through as the demon waitress emerged from the kitchen, its hips thrust forward in a grotesque and menacing parody of sexual allure. Frantically he shoved at the door.

It wouldn't budge.


	5. Chapter 5

**November 12, 1997.**

_There was wan light, probably from candles. Ryan couldn't determine the source of the amorphous blobs of dancing orange light bit it would make sense if they were candles. He was in church, after all._

"_Church? I thought I was in a cafe.", he said to his Uncle Ray who shook his head dismissively and strode in slow, sombre steps toward the big wooden box._

_The box. Of course! His father had died again._

_He strides past his uncle and rests his hands on the open beech casket. Dad lay there, perfectly still, just as before. His skin was as waxy and yellowish as it had been the first time he died._

"_Like a chicken." he said out loud. He turned his head to look at his uncle._

"_Like the chickens in the refrigerator units in Wal-Mart." He explained. He spoke with a child's voice. _

_Uncle Ray nodded demurely._

_The church was filled with a low hum, like an ethereal choir of baritones. _

_Like the noise Timmy makes._

_There was a scratchy tickling in his nose and throat and the aroma filling his sinuses turned his stomach._

_He turned around to face his family and friends gathered behind him and announced;_

"_The burgers have gone bad. Sorry!"_

_The others didn't seem to mind. They just stared ahead at the casket, at him. As one they seemed to stir restlessly. What were they waiting for him to do?_

_Ray put his hand on Ryan's shoulder and, of course! He realised that they were waiting for him to kiss his father goodbye._

_He placed one hand on the empty cavity of his father's chest. It felt hollow. The lungs that killed him were gone now. The other came to rest on the dead man's waxy forehead._

_Ryan leaned forward._

"_I never judged you Dad, I promise."_

_He was about to place his lips on his father's cold, embalmed skin when his dead eyes flicked open._

_Ryan's pulse raced but he was unable to move._

_His father's mouth creaked open, tearing out stitches. Brown teeth and black tongue were bared at him._

"_Little faggot!" He said as his forehead split open with an obscene, wet peeling sound. The slit became a little mouth lined with needle like, razor sharp teeth. They clamped his finger and held it fast, knifing through flesh, gnawing at bone. Others just like it formed, like weeping sores on the old man's face, each one gnawing at his son's bleeding hand._

"_You love your Uncle Ray so much why don't you fuck him, bookworm?"_

_As the little mouths all over his face did their work the larger, nicotine gutted mouth snarled and sneered. The black tongue fluttered indecently. _

_Ryan could not scream, nor move. He watched powerless as the little mouths stripped him of his pinkie finger, swallowing the bone into the empty recess where his father's brain used to be. His father roared and raged as the piranha like maws continued to strip his hand of meat. _

_Clutching his wrist with his free hand he wrenched himself away. A fountain of blood whiplashed the cruciform image of Christ._

"_You little cunt. Ungrateful little cunt!" his father raged._

_Ryan staggered back. He turned to Uncle Ray, only to find him gone. Unforeseen bowel disorder. He had been poisoned by his own blood._

_Clutching his wrist he ran toward Mairead. Kim buried her face in her mother's bosom in horror. Tim simply stared onward, unseeing, uncomprehending. Mairead shook her head and drew the children away from him. Her eyes warning._

"_They'll kill you, you little queer!" his father bellowed behind him, sitting up in his coffin now. "They'll fuck you and leave you to die just like you did me. You like that? You like that you sack of shit?"_

_Ryan fell to the floor which was cold and hard and greasy. The smoke swirled about him. The stench of burning, rotting meat wrapped itself around him like an ephemeral scarf, suffocating him._

He choked and spluttered and awoke on the floor of the diner.

The nightmare had left him, as these scant confrontations with our own psyches are wont to do, with a sense of depression and dread.

The reality he had awoken to, however, was even worse.

The smoke was still there, foul smelling and oppressive but it wasn't trying to strangle him to death.

He couldn't see. The smoke stung his eyes.

The fingers on his right hand felt tingly and itchy. He attempted to wriggle them and became aware of a strange slurping sound. Like someone with no manners eating soup. He brought his hand up to his face. The smoke danced mockingly around him as he moved.

_Look behind my curtain_, it seemed to say, _step right up and see what I have for you!_

What he saw would have made him scream, had the sound in his throat not been choked by his own vomit. He retched heavily onto the ground next to him and stared at the _thing, the things_ attached to his hand in numb disbelief. There were three of them, each about the size of a candy bar. They had the fleshy, invertebrate bodies of leeches and their skin was a horrible translucent bluish white.

With a horror muted partially by shock, he realised that the things had consumed the last three fingers on his hand from the forefinger onward.

The obscene creatures became bloated as they gorged, their skin turning from pasty bluish white to a mottled crimson. Panic and alarm shrieked at him through the numbing blanket of shock and he shook his hand vigorously to try and dislodge the leeching things. They collided with the wall and floor with a series of slimy thuds. The arcing jets of his blood spattered the now black and lichen infested wooden floor. It created a staccato red streak across the mildew festooned greyish walls and the door to the kitchen.

The kitchen.

_Find a tourniquet or bleed to death. _His instincts commanded him.

Ryan rose to his feet and the world seesawed wildly causing him to evacuate his stomach once again. He jammed his damaged hand into his armpit, clamping his free arm down as much as possible to staunch the bleeding. His shirt instantly became warm and sticky.

With his good hand he wafted away the noxious tendrils of the smoke. The fumes parted to reveal the nightmare creature that had rendered him unconscious.

He remembered now the shapely feminine form of the demon waitress, clad in a grimy parody of a pink uniform. He remembered the jaunty, shambling way it had strode towards him, hips twitching perversely. As he had been throwing himself manically at the door in a vain effort to open it, this creature had struck him with its forearm. The blow sent him reeling into a table and he had pitched over it awkwardly, landing on his head.

His attacker was silent and still now, on its knees about six feet from him, between him and the only door to the kitchen. With horror Ryan realised that she -_ it_ was the source of the leech like creatures that had almost devoured his hand. Between its splayed legs the toothy Venus fly trap of its vulva pulsed and belched. Intermittently it coughed and spat. With every outburst from the disgusting orifice, it ejaculated three or four of the invertebrates. They crawled lazily toward him.

Nausea and pain claimed him and his knees buckled. Consciousness attempted to leap from Ryan's body as if to escape this dreadful thing through the ceiling. He caught himself and what would have been a pratfall became a mere stagger. His foot, falling heavily, crushed one of the leeches. It exploded into a splatter of black ooze and a host of smaller, maggot sized creatures.

If the demon waitress was bothered by the death of her slimy offspring it didn't show it, remaining completely immobile, save for an infrequent shudder.

Ryan was torn between urges. His instincts screamed at him to pursue a back door and to flee this dreadful place. He needed medical attention and quickly. A different region of his psyche, confusing and alien to him, sought retribution for the disfiguring injury he had been dealt. It wanted to attack this creature while it was still, presumably, sleeping and harm it grievously for what it had done.

The leeches grew closer, though they were too slow to be considered a great threat.

The kitchen.

It was his best avenue of escape. It no doubt had a serviceable back door as well as a first aid kit with some gauze. Maybe even some liquor to ease the pain.

With slow, deliberate steps he crept stealthily past the demon waitress. Seconds dragged like hours. Every shuddering, spasmodic movement the twitching creature made bathed him in the cold sweat of terror. He was a step away from the door when he extended his good hand to push it open.

Suddenly, irrevocably a small geyser of pressurised blood spurted from his injured hand, released by the removed pressure of his arm. The treacherous fluid jetted through the air and spattered onto the near featureless face of the creature.

With superhuman speed it jolted to life. A terrifyingly erotic groan escaped its lipless hole of a mouth and the snaking black tongue- _so much like Dad's in that nightmare_- lapped at the spent fluid. Its dainty but rotten hands rubbed the ruby drops into the necrotic flesh of its breasts.

Again, Ryan found himself frozen. Simultaneously appalled and shocked by the combination of abject horror and sexual desire this creature exhibited. Alarm bells chimed in his skull, slowly but surely spurring his feet into action.

By the time the demon waitress was on its high heeled feet Ryan had flung himself through the door and into the kitchen.

The smoke hit him like a choking bluish wall but nonetheless he slammed the door shut behind him against the threat beyond.

The door was the handle free type that could swing open from either end to admit the coming and going of service staff. There was nothing he could do to keep the demon waitress out for very long.

As if in stern reminder of that fact he was jolted forward by the door. The heels of his shoes slid on the greasy floor of the kitchen. Grasping the doorframe with his unbitten hand he braced himself as best he could while the demon waitress shoved again and again at the door, wailing angrily.

Ryan's panicked eyes darted about the room, scrutinising it as best he could through the smoke.

He saw the blob thing. Its glutinous, pasty body still frying and spitting on the griddle. Its face was a bloody, ragged cavern. In cupboards and on the surfaces were numerous pots and pans but they were caked in rust and probably far too feeble to use as a weapon.

Still the creature rained blows on the door. His left hand flexed to find greater purchase on the doorframe. The tips of his fingers brushed something slender and metallic.

Ryan could have fallen to his knees and praised God if he weren't so sure that it would permit the creature pursuing him entrance to the kitchen. From a series of hooks hung a selection of knives on a wall mounted rack a few inches away from where his hand rested.

Most of the blades were dull and scabrous with rust, but the cleaver by his hand was so sharp and pristine it could have been cast that very morning.

The cleaver. Its sleek blade winked at him with violent promise.

Without a moments hesitation he spun around and snatched the weapon from its hook.

Mustering all his pain and rage and misery he charged forward, his foot catching the door at chest height.

The kitchen door exploded open sending the demon waitress toppling onto its shapely behind. Carried forward by his momentum Ryan leapt upon his aggressor. The creature writhed beneath him with such strong and erratic contractions he was almost thrown off immediately. Wary of the sharp teeth of the creature's groin, that had punctured the skull of the fleshy creature in the kitchen, he wriggled his body up its torso. The creature groaned again and the parallels disgusted and offended him.

Using his knees to pin its shoulders down Ryan set his weight down upon the creature and held the cleaver aloft.

He felt no pity for the malevolent thing that stared, eyeless, up at him. The skin around its mouth was rippling and contracting around the black chasm of its mouth, like a vortex of black veined, rippling flesh. The tongue still lashed at him as if desperate to score the minor victory of tasting his flesh.

The cleaver descended.

The sharp blade seared through flesh and bit into bone. The creature's unexpectedly human sounding wail stayed Ryan's hand.

But only for a moment.

With the burning agony of his hand providing ample motivation he worked the cleaver free of the demon waitress' head. A spray of blackish red arterial blood burned his eyes and soiled his clothes. A few droplets found their way past his snarling lip and into his mouth.

The bitter taste was somehow familiar.

Pain and nausea and circumstance forgotten, Ryan brought the cleaver to bear time and time again on the creature's face, his teeth bared in silent rage.

He thought of his father.


	6. Chapter 6

"Come on!"

Not a chug, not a cough, just oppressive silence.

"Start, you motherfucker!"

But Ryan knew that the car would not start, even as he wrenched the key out of the ignition and re-inserted it, clutching it in his white, trembling hand.

_The car won't start._

The key would only turn loosely in the ignition.

His only opportunity for escape and salvation had become a steel cage to trap him.

_The car won't start, and you're going to die!_

He gnashed his teeth in defiance of the nagging voice in his head but he could only ignore it. He could not silence it.

_Any minute now that thing is going to come out and fuck you and kill you._

Unwelcome images poured into his mind. The demon waitress, mutilated but unharmed by his onslaught with the cleaver, lurching wildly through the café doors, the creature's devouring spiny, vulva clamping shut around his genitals like a venus fly trap. Blood cascading from the ragged hole in his groin as the creature reared back and screeched in unholy triumph.

His head darted from the steering wheel back to the unmoving café door. Moisture and warmth oozed from his mutilated left hand which he had jammed into his armpit. There was the spongy light headedness of blood loss but thankfully no pain.

_Those things, those fucking _leeches_ ate my fingers and any moment now they're going to come streaming out of that door and start oozing through the windows to get to the rest of me. _

His good hand worked the key pathetically again and again. It was no use. He was going to die in his car. After the surge of despair that the realisation brought came a grim sense of resignation. He slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes. He let his left hand hang limply at his side, weakly pumping out blood.

With a few deep, self pitying sobs he screwed his eyes shut and waited to bleed to death.

A loud bump shocked him out of his wallowing. Ryan started at the squat, brawny creature that had leapt through the mist onto the bonnet of his car. The thing was a mass of sinew and exoskeletal bone and it walked ape like on its hands toward the windshield. Between enormous shoulders and thickly muscled arms a stubby lump of a featureless head shuddered frantically with some unspeakable bloodlust. Its ribcage was the colour of old bone and protruded visibly above the skin. Beneath the torso hung two limp sacs of flesh, grotesque parodies of legs.

It hopped up and down on its huge, powerful hands, grunting angrily. Ryan pushed himself backwards, his shoes scrambling on the congealing blood in the foot well. The terror at seeing this abominable creature had suddenly galvanised him. His resignation to a slow, painless death suddenly dissolved by the threat of a painful, violent end.

His good hand clutched the door handle but it held fast as though the door had been welded shut. He did not waste his time trying to force it open. As he scrambled across the passenger seat his bleeding hand brushed something hard and cold that made him start and then emit a brief bark of laughter despite the anthropoid creature trying to force its way into his car.

Ryan had never owned a gun.

He had never even shot a gun.

He had lobbied for and donated to anti gun charities like Ceasefire.

Nevertheless his hand fell on a 9mm pistol surreptitiously placed upon his passenger seat God knew when by God knew whom. He did not stop to wonder at the preposterousness of it, but swung the weapon around and levelled it at the creature which even now was cocking its fist back ready to shatter his windshield.

He squeezed the trigger, the recoil and the slick blood on his hands sending the shot wide. Cracks spider webbed across the glass and the bullet glanced off the creature's shoulder. Feeling his strength ebb away from him Ryan flailed with the butt of the pistol, knocking out the shattered glass as the creature tottered backwards. With a lurch the monster rocked back on and propelled itself into the car, huge hands gripping the headrest, its monstrous weight on Ryan's lap. With terror and revulsion lending urgency to the action he jammed the muzzle of the weapon into the quivering gelatinous mass of the creature's head and squeezed the trigger even as one of its huge monstrous hands encircled his throat. The percussion was deafening in the confined space and though Ryan felt hot, acrid smelling blood spatter onto his hands and face the leathery skinned hand did not relinquish its hold.

With a nauseating creak the thing's protruding ribs parted, its chest opening up to reveal a blackened fleshy chasm, oozing dark ichor. Something pink, barbed and unmistakably phallic stirred and pulsed softly within.

Ryan did not wait to see what happened next and levelled the gun's smoking muzzle into the fleshy void.

Again and again he pulled the trigger, gouts of blood and chunks of putrescent flesh erupted from the gaping, ragged wound but the creature's murderous grasp only strengthened even as the hammer clicked impotently in an empty chamber. A gnarled thumb pressed into his trachea and the world began to ebb in a receding tide of tan and crimson.

In desperation, Ryan thrashed back and forth in an effort to pitch forward and overturn the creature but its weight and its grip on the headrest held it fast. He rained blows on its blood slicked torso with the butt of the handgun but even as he fought he recognised the futility.

The creature lowed in carnivorous triumph as Ryan was borne, defiantly, into oblivion.

"_Christ it's cold." _

_He pulled the covers tighter around himself._

_The window was open._

_Had he fallen asleep watching TV?_

_Mairead wasn't there and she should have been. He'd go and get her and bring her back._

_He stretched, enjoying the feel of the covers as the warm feeling of slumber spread through his body. He looked around expecting to see their apartment but instead he saw his old house._

"_I'm not supposed to be here," he informed the familiar space around him "I'm all grown up!"_

_The toys around him responded with silence._

_He eased himself out of bed. He looked frantically for his robe but it wasn't on the hook on his door. Dad would be very angry if he caught him walking round the house naked. Especially now he was grown up._

_He pulled at the door._

_The handle was cold. _

_There was a layer of frost on the brass._

_He swung the door open revealing the landing of their new house. Mairead stood in front of the window, pale and lovely in the moonlight. She turned to face him, her eyes dark pinholes of melancholy. He held her, stroking the frost from her hair._

"_What are you doing out here?"_

_She took his hand, her cold making his fingers tingle._

"_I can't come back, sweetheart."_

_He rubbed his hands up and down her naked back and held her closer. Why wouldn't she warm up?_

"_But honey… You know I can't go to sleep without you!"_

_He squeezed her tightly but she wriggled out of his grasp._

"_Let me go, Ryan."_

_Those mahogany eyes looked up at him, crystallising with ice as she implored him,_

"_Let me go."_

_Her breath froze in the air._

_Suddenly Ryan was alone._

_He hung his head and was suddenly wracked by a sense of loss and loneliness that seeped through flesh and bone into the fabric of his soul. He began to sob convulsively, gasping in great lungfuls of freezing air._

"_Mairead"_

_Her name half formed in his throat before he felt it tighten. He began to gag as an icy lump formed in his throat. Invisible, freezing cold hands closed around his larynx and he dropped to his knees on the bare floorboards of what he now knew had turned into the derelict shell of his first home._

_He tried to breathe but every feeble attempt felt like shards of ice shredding his lungs. His tongue was a slab of frozen steak. His lips split as his mouth became a jagged cave of cracked flesh, frozen solid by the unnatural cold._

_As his insides crystallised Ryan felt a scream build within him, something deep within the pit of his stomach that was both freeing and burning._

He screamed.

A shrill, guttural sound that wrenched him into the unforgiving realms of consciousness.

It was cold in the car.

The windshield and windows were mottled with kaleidoscope patterns of frost. He hunched forward in the driver's seat, his head between his knees, sucking in cold air in ragged gasps. His hands trembled and it was not until much later that he would realise that his fingers were now perfectly intact.

He gripped the steering wheel and pressed his head against the cool leather. His hands felt glad of having something real and tangible to hold.

Sanity and clarity seeped into him gradually as they come to the waking dreamer. He brought his reeling mind slowly under control, soothing and taming it like a wild colt.

_Your name is Ryan Streatham. You're thirty nine years old. You got your PhD in American History from Empire State University. You met your wife, Mairead in-_

The thought was cut short and Ryan's blood froze as a long shadow was cast over the cab. Ryan turned in horror at the bulky amorphous shadow that formed in the window.

And when it rapped on the glass he screamed

And screamed and screamed.

"You sure you're okay sir?"

Ryan sipped the hot coffee from the flask's lid and tried not to feel like a complete idiot.

"I'm fine. Really I… I feel like such an asshole!"

There was no derision in the laugh that followed.

"Yeah, we scared each other pretty good didn't we?"

He shuddered at the thought of himself, thrashing and ranting in the driver's seat as the police officer had politely tapped on the window to ask if he needed help starting his car.

"I don't know what happened, I really don't. I just… The car wouldn't start and I guess I must've fallen asleep."

"Well, no question that sumbitch was dead as dead can be. Soon as we'll get you home you can give AAA a call."

Ryan smiled weakly.

"Must've been one doozy of a nightmare you were having there, sir!"

"You can say that again" he said and took a long sip of the coffee.

The windshield wiper arced through a sheen of drizzle but it did little to clear the view of the road which was still shrouded in that impenetrable mist. The cop drove on unperturbed. He was probably so familiar with these streets he could navigate the patrol car down them blindfolded.

The officer's name was Patrolman George Kirsch, a kindly faced fifty something who had been a resident of Silent Hill for thirty years after moving up with his high school sweetheart from Houston, Texas. When Ryan had mentioned his book Kirsch had been only too happy to regale him with stories of the town's colourful history as the patrol car eased its way down the silent streets.

"We get a lot of people, you know, disaster tourists? They ain't no real trouble or but… it kinda breaks my heart that people only visit Silent Hill for the gruesome stuff. My sister in law, she owns this guesthouse. Well, I tell ya, soon as news got out about that Sunderland fella a couple years back she couldn't move for murder junkies in black t-shirts clamouring for a room with a view of Toluca lake. Damn kids, they got this beautiful, quiet little town right under their noses and all they want to see is the dark side."

Ryan gave him an obliging nod. He had extensive notes on the James Sunderland murder / suicide but had been hoping to get some local perspective on the mysterious sequence of events.

"I'm guessing people don't like to talk about it, huh?"

Kirsch winced and cocked his head to one side.

"What you gotta understand is, people here live under a kind of stigma. Salem has the witch trials, Death Valley has the Manson family. No matter what happens in a town, the good people do, it all gets pushed aside. People just want to associate you with one thing. Can't blame people for getting tired of it."

"You can't blame people for being curious either. I mean, look at the Sullivan murders. They were national news."

He saw Kirrsch's eyes dart across to him in the rear view mirror. The avuncular smile dropped for a fraction of a moment.

"Let me give you some free advice, you being new around here and all. Learn the fact, write your book by all means. But be very careful what you're askin' and to whom. There's a lot of open wounds in this town that ain't quite had time to heal. Blood's run down these streets just the same as every other town I've seen. But the folks here are tryin' harder than most to wash it off of their doorstep. There was a time folks here'd throw open their doors to you. Now… Now we're all a little more reserved."

There was a hard edge to the man's voice and Ryan decided not to push him any further on these matters.

Outside the streets were deserted. The mist enveloped sidewalks were curiously devoid of comings and goings of small town life. No families walked their dogs. No lovers strode hand in hand. No businessmen clasped cell phones or sipped coffee from Styrofoam cups. The quotidian threads that wove the tapestry of everyday life left an aching void in their absence, like the empty place at the dinner table left by a lost relative. There was something both chilling and melancholic in the quiet.

The mechanical groan of the windshield wipers and the soft percussion of the rain were the mens' only company as they drove in silence to the house.

The rain had subsided when the patrol car pulled into the empty driveway of Ryan's new home. He exited the car and waved at Kirsch as he pulled away with a smile. He ascended the steps and drew in a deep breath.

_Hey hon, hey kids. You'd _never_ believe what happened to me at the café today!_

He removed his keys from his pocket and rolled his eyes as he struggled to fit the key into the lock. He applied some pressure and it grazed the brass plate, scratching the paintwork.

Must be losing my mind, took the wrong damn keys.

He checked the embossed logo on the key. It was the one for the new house, alright. Conceding he rang the doorbell.

There was a quick shuffle of footsteps within and the door cracked open, a shaft of warm yellow light warming the grey chill of the foggy dusk. Ryan leaned against the door, pushing it open all the way.

"Hey hun, Christ it's good to be home! How have the ki-"

The smile immediately disappeared from his face. The tired contentment he had felt upon arriving home vanished and ice ran in his veins.

The woman who had opened the door, who looked up at him with a lover's eyes was not his wife.


End file.
